


No. 13 from The Carnival

by crowind



Category: BanG Dream! Girl's Band Party! (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:00:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26837875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowind/pseuds/crowind
Summary: Rinko and Rui, and returning to what wasn't but could be in the future.
Relationships: Shirokane Rinko & Yashio Rui
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	No. 13 from The Carnival

**Author's Note:**

> The only thing we know is that Rui and Rinko knew each other through their parents, that Rui thought of Rinko as talented, and that Rui quit violin on her parents' suggestion, later to become her own conviction. The rest are details invented for this story awaiting to be jossed by the inevitable childhood flashback event. Enjoy!

Don't stare. Only uncivilized people stare, people whose parents have never taught them to not stare. Rui was not one of them. Her parents had taught her, while getting ready for the trip, and again in the car, as they were about to descend on the Shirokane residence. Although it was her first time visiting an acquaintance's house, Rui did not stare. Neither larger nor smaller, none more extravagant or modest, there was nothing worth staring at. The tapestry of of brave Saint George charging against a flame-breathing obsidian dragon hanging over the vestibule — Rui's mother had the exact same hanging over her kitchen. 

It lasted until Rui was ushered with the only daughter of the house into a two-storied room. There was a black monstrosity occupying the centre. Rui's childish whimsy, not yet fully enslaved to logic, imagined its open maw closing around her and her violin, little Saint George and his toothpick before a dragon as vast as the night sky. She was still for a long time, looking long enough that it must have passed as staring, and she would've continued if the girl behind her hadn't made a noise like a startled mouse. 

Then Rui saw beyond. There was a bed hidden behind the piano. This was Rinko's bedroom; in yet another rare showing of her fanciful imagination, Rui put the two together and thought of her as the princess who slept within a piano. She stood behind Rui, wringing her hands. She hadn't once said more than her name. She stuttered, and her voice was so quiet Rui had to lean forward to catch it. 

"Excuse me, Rui-chan… Would you like to… play a duet with me…?" 

A rhetorical question: Rui's violin teacher had been drilling her through a duet piece the week before the visit, then Rui's parents had put her violin case in her hands and told her she was to play with the Shirokane girl. Rui nodded. The princess tottered and clambered onto the piano seat with the help of a stepstool. Her feet dangled a good distance above the ground — and above the pedals. Hands folded primly on her lap, eyes downcast, waiting for Rui despite being the older of the two. 

As a child Rui was only concerned with making the right pitch at the right moment. Even in a duet, as far as she was concerned only her own part deserved her full attention. It was just as well that in this piece the violin took the lead, the piano merely an accompaniment. In those other duet pieces where the piano was at times allowed to be more intricate and seemed to take stage, well, those were also the segments where the violin played a variation on the themes. The piano must then take the melody so that the audience wouldn't be completely lost. In their duet Rinko hadn't done anything to challenge Rui's theory. She didn't play in such a way as to make Rui notice her. In the many hours they spent rehearsing together they almost never talked. There was only music, and of music, Rui could only say that together they had made something adequate. Their recital in front of their parents seemed to have pleased the adults well enough. Rui's solo piece afterward went perfectly. Perfectly within expectations for a normal, untalented child who put in the work. 

Until recently, Rui had always studied the violin in private. She had little enough interest in listening to the performance of professionals, let alone child prodigies. Rui was only a child; the violin hadn't been her choice. Into this untilled soil of her mind, Rinko's performance would take root, defining 'talent' for years to come even after Rui was exposed to many more sophisticated musicians since. Rinko played cleanly, giving breath to each note — and what a long breath it was with its long, intricate arpeggios. Time itself danced to her fingers. And for five, ten, fifteen, however many minutes could've been stretched into an eternity, Rinko held all of Rui's attention. 

She never saw Rinko again after that. Rinko was busy preparing for a contest, and in that vein, Rui's parents also deemed she was ready for one. There was no point in continuing with the violin if she wasn't making progress, and a contest was the only acceptable method of measuring progress. She entered one, competing against other children her age from all over the country. She practiced everyday for as many hours as were available in a day without neglecting schoolwork. 

And when the time came, she stood on the stage and fought her trembling hands to a stand still, and got them to move the way she had drilled the piece into her muscle memory. The experience was not one she could remember later — it was not an experience she cared to remember much. So many eyes on her person with so little interest in her specifically. Just another wannabe virtuoso going through the circuit, on track to hating music as an adult. Rui didn't get the first place, nor the second. All that practice, and she failed to at least come third. 

That was the way of the world, her parents laid out on the drive back home. Rui sat at the back, staring dry-eyed outside the window. The violin felt heavy on her lap. Rui had worked hard. So had the other contestants, even the preternaturally talented children. The wunderkinds who dominated the national and international stages, their regimen could only be more rigorous, not less. Without talents, Rui had lost the race before it'd even begun. 

"There is only so much time we have to be alive, Rui. Don't waste it struggling against something you could never win." 

Rui's parents never demanded. They presented her with facts and logic and allowed her to make her own decision, only stepping in when she chose to be unreasonable. And a part of her wanted to. Open the window of this moving car and throw the violin out. Or more bizarrely, take it out of its case and tuck it under her chin and draw the bow across the strings, practice makes perfect. And then it wouldn't be her choice to make. She didn't do any of that. It was simple mathematics. The same amount of effort would be amplified further by talent. Shirokane Rinko was talented; Rui was not. Clear-eyed, in the light of day, with time enough passed to think, Rui chose to stop taking violin lessons. 

But the violin stayed in her room. There was no need to keep it around, and there was no need to throw it away either. Already she had outgrown the diminished model. If it was a bigger instrument, for example a grand piano. Rui had these moments when she'd look at the violin case hidden just out of sight behind her wardrobe, and she'd think of the princess who slept in the grand piano, of the ebony and ivory dragon being the first and last sight she saw everyday. Sometimes she thought of it the other way, that it was Rinko's talents that had bound and tamed the piano. 

* * *

One year and a change of renting a studio nearly daily, and only yesterday did Rinko discover CiRCLE had an upright piano. It was tucked in a corner, in a room barely big enough for one more person besides the pianist. The _una corda_ pedal only worked half the time, and the keys were somehow even less pliable than her FA-08. But it served Rinko's purpose well for the moment, and Rui hadn't complained. But ah, Rui seemed to have grown to be truly formidable, and not a little daunting. She had a full-sized violin these days, one of those curious five-stringed model that would be superfluous for classical music. 

At the end, in the silence where their music had breathed its last, she said, absolutely apropos of nothing, "Don't you find your talents wasted playing in a rock band, Shirokane-san?" 

Well, not nothing, but it still took Rinko a while to answer with a stalling question of her own. "Why would you say that… Yashio-san?" 

Rinko still couldn't quite believe Rui would've accepted her impulsive invitation to play a duet. The very same piece that was the entirety of their childhood acquaintance, in fact. Rinko had never quite understood what was the point of that, but as she grew older she thought she could piece together the remnants of her mother's wishes. Rui's mother and Rinko's mother had been friends during their university days in England. An attempt had been made to resume that connection in Japan, through their children if needed be. If only homecoming, marriage, children, or simply the passage of time itself hadn't happened. But nostalgia proved to be a feeble bridge, and Avalon would forever remain lost in the mists of memory. 

… As Rinko herself seemed to have learned by experience. She hadn't meant to invoke nostalgia, such that it existed at all. Her acquaintance with Rui had been very brief and shallow, and more or less contained to this duet piece. Using music as a container for memories seemed to be part of the problem. As she grew older Rinko appreciated anew the value of emotions in performance. Usually it was deliberate. But just now she'd done it without meaning to — without realizing she'd held such sentiments in the first place. 

Rui seemed to — no, Rinko knew she had reciprocated the sentiment, or at least the duet. There was emotion in her playing, or attempts at responding to Rinko's in kind, anyway. A lake was laid out before her, a solitary body of water on a clear, windless day. After staring at it for a while, the skittish swan finally descended. Vigilant and aloof at first, slowly it allowed itself to relax and drift on the still waters. It sang — ah, but didn't the Greek or maybe the Romans had some odd ideas about the songs of swans, so maybe she shouldn't think of it as singing? And Rinko had read somewhere that real swans were not nearly as nice as they appeared on the outside, so likening Rui to a swan wouldn't be kind to her either. 

Back in the present, Rui gave her a ponderous look. She'd grown so tall, and it didn't help that violinists as a rule stood over pianists. Impassive as ever, she said, "In a band you're subservient to the other instruments and the vocals. Your hard-won techniques and finesse are lost in the din, they're even unwanted." 

Rinko thought of her early days with Roselia, of falling behind and before the rhythm because she had been too much of a classical pianist, and held back her smile. She understood that Rui wasn't disparaging Roselia, at least not intentionally. Rui herself was in a band, and in fact it was thanks to their bands that they were reunited. There were all kinds of musicians, Rinko supposed, and all of them loved music in their own ways. It was music, and therefore all of them were worthy, and it would be an exercise in absurdity to compare them. And on the other hand, because it was music, it deserved all the scrutiny and all the evaluations. Rinko thought that whichever side a musician fell on, they must still draw a line somewhere, a thoroughline for living by the particular music they did. 

And yet, it didn't seem to be the nature of Rui's question. Finally, she answered, "It's thanks to Roselia… that I found the courage to participate in competitions once more. I'd quit piano competitions… for a while… quite a long while…" Rinko said. _And it led us back here._

If Rinko hadn't spent quite so much time with Yukina, she wouldn't have caught the subtle shift around Rui's eyes. Could it be surprise? "I wouldn't have expected it of you. Though it doesn't seem as though you've quit the piano itself." 

"I was frightened… of failure among other things, before so many people… of the experience tainting my relationship with the piano itself… But because I stayed away from competitions… I could still enjoy playing music for itself… for my own improvement…" 

In another world the young Rinko wouldn't have stayed discouraged for too long. She'd have tried again sooner, and she might have succeeded. That other Rinko would then be caught up in competition after competition and burned out eventually. Or she might not. It was wishful thinking either way. 

"It wasn't a loss… it might've been good that I'd stopped… but only momentarily, and finally I faced my fear… having reignited my passion for the piano…" 

Rinko had never spoken of it to anyone, not even Ako or her old teacher. But she thought Rui hadn't probed her past for nothing. The violin balanced on her shoulder, Rui tilted her head staring in a way that didn't disillusion Rinko of her avian impression at all. Hanging to her words, or just politely holding off telling Rinko she was full of it. But that was fine, Rinko had spoken in the off chance that Rui had needed it, had sought someone who once walked a similar path. 

Rui said, "I'm sure it must have been obvious to you that I'd stopped playing the violin for some time. Unlike you, it is too late for me to resume from where I'd left off on the conventional route." 

As funny as it was to hear someone two years younger speaking of being too late for anything, Rinko understood her point. The conventional route — professional orchestral violinist, Rinko supposed — was already saturated with wunderkinds and ordinary but persistent people alike, all dedicating their entire life to the violin since the instrument was placed in their hands. "But given the chance… would you like to…?" 

Rui slowly shook her head. She took the violin down, speaking mostly to herself. "I don't think even as a child I'd held that aspiration, nor a fraction of your passion for music. This is… an experiment, one that doesn't necessitate the violin but for Morfonica. If following my heart might yield better results this time." 

Vagueness didn't suit Rui, but despite feeling as if she'd missed several critical conversations, somehow Rinko understood. It was writ large in Rui's music, after all. She smiled in what she hoped was an encouraging smile. "I think it's a worthy pursuit, Yashio-san. And should you…" What, _need anything_ , or other overly familiar platitudes? Even if she'd meant it, they were not close. 

Rui didn't seem to notice her pause. "Surely you have more important things to attend to." She said this without quite looking at Rinko. Strange again. 

Ah, damn it all, Rinko thought, they didn't just bare their hearts to near strangers only to pretend it hadn't happened. "But I'd like to… play another duet with you… if you wish…" 

It was a rhetorical question. Rui wasted no time before setting the violin back on her shoulder. As she re-tuned the strings, she said, "Then I'd like to perfect this piece first, if you'd please." 

Rinko would. She was pleased, very much so.

**Author's Note:**

> As the title not so subtly alludes to, they're playing The Swan from Saint-Saëns's Carnival of the Animals. Originally it's a piece for the cello and at least one piano - the original score is for two pianos - but it also seems to be popular to play it with a violin instead. It's a simple enough piece to be played by children, though getting the emotions and the tone might be difficult for children. The solo piece Rinko is playing is probably a Mozart or Beethoven or Bach sonata, anything from the common practice period where the sustain pedal is a hindrance.
> 
> Please let me know what works or doesn't work for you!


End file.
